I don't know, I'm feeling the cynicism also. I've been here for seven years as a community owner (and thus know what it is to build community). When communitys started on Hive they were exciting, energetic places to be. EAch community would do things to gain folowers and supporters, and build a wallet where they could do that financially also (Natural Medicine nearly had 100k in it's wallet from hard work and delegations) until it shifted towards a more egalatarian approach and community curation posts and efforts were downvoted in the interest of keeping that under control. I'm a bit cynical about this - that's perhaps another conversation.
I turn away from a lot of development and projects as I'm not sure about the merit of any of them. It's a solid build - as you say, the bones are good - what do new projects offer? Is there really anything exciting about the new or is it just dressed up and performative?
The price drops, we all leave the building - that's usual. People don't play unless there's money involved - they feel no personal responsibility toward making it a good place through engagmenet, for example, or more egalatarian voting rather than just 'vote me and I'll vote you because I like you because you are like me and we hang out in Discord together with our cocks out' - sorry not sorry, you're Australian, you get it.
And there isn't hte checkss and balances that prevent bad players - to a reasonable extent, downvotes of course. There's a lot of things here that turn average users off - the kind of users that do see it as a blogging platform. Even for people like me who've been around forever, we get jaded as well.
the broader market shift toward speculation over substance
I tend to agree - but we've been in big fucking lulls before, and we've come back up.
I just wish everyone would see it as not just a place to earn a dollar - but then, we've said that a million times before.
Maybe we need a separate feed that IS just projects - not a community per se but something quite visible whether you opt in or not, so we can see these happenings more visibly. I'd personally like to see decisions about Hive be less weighted to those with bigger wallers, bad players turned invisible once they go past a certain rep (not just 'muted' by the user, but unable to be seen at all, preventing bot comments and other idiocy) and communities disappear if they're not maintained by admin/owners, and more even support of various niches (why do Ladies of Hive and creative writing get less votes by whales, on a whole, than other content? That question I know the answer to, but I would like to be otherwise) But these are all just me via using Hive as a blog, not as a developer. Blogging here has enormous benefits to those who blog.
Fuck I could talk crap for hours but prob none of it answers your questions. I'm just more suprised I haven't met you before - have I? Victorian here.
Nah we haven't met before. Queensland here so not too far off.
I've been around since January 2018 so just passed the 8 years mark myself now. So yeah everything you said about communities getting kneecapped by downvotes when they were actually building something real, that's the kind of thing that makes people walk away and never come back. Natural Medicine having 100k in the wallet from actual hard work and then getting slapped down is a perfect example of why people get cynical. You can't tell people to build and then punish them for succeeding at it.
The voting circle stuff, I mean, we all see it. Everyone knows what's going on. Bros in Discord jerking each other off with upvotes while someone writes a genuinely great piece of creative fiction and gets 40 cents. That's not a mystery, it's just depressing.
I like your projects feed idea honestly. Discoverability is garbage right now. Things get built and die in silence because nobody even knew they existed. Something with more visibility that doesn't require people to go hunting would help.
The rep system doing nothing meaningful against bad actors is another one. Muting is a bandaid on a broken leg. But try getting consensus on anything stronger on a chain where the people with the most stake also have the most say in governance. You see the problem. I get why that other failed fork removed downvotes, they don't do anything and they can be used by whales to silence people far too easily.
Look the bones are good, I genuinely believe that. The tech underneath is solid and undervalued. But the social layer on top has calcified into something that actively repels normal users, and until that changes the tech doesn't matter because nobody's here to use it.
Anyway yeah I could go on about this for hours too. Good to meet someone else who gives enough of a shit to be angry about it. I'm gonna keep building and see what happens, it won't be for a lack of trying, ha.
I was a little worried to come back and read your reply actually - I thought my little rant might fall wrong. It's very nice for my complaints to be recognized if not validated. There's certainly a lot I can say about it but I don't want to dig a hole! The Natural Medicine thing almost broke me. The advent of community was such a heady time - it was honestly the most exciting, vibrant thing to happen post Steem. There was a real sense each community was creating something important that could spill out from Hive into the wider world. I mean, we had business cards made and all. To have that dashed really floored me. Looking at it from a distance now, it's kinda crazy how all that enthusiasm just flopped and there's a lot of fantastic people just have up around then.
I could write a book about those times! Honestly. It's hard to believe it was that long ago now - I remember being in India as covid hit and then in the UK running a community party on Discord and trying not to have a mental breakdown.
I wish we could at get that vibrancy again. I know people have different ways of seeing what's good for this platform, I totally respect that, but as you suggest, it's not fair that many of us who are fully invested emotionally don't have the financial sway to make it happen. State of the world though innit?
You have no idea how this recognition makes me feel. I feel like I'm the only one seeing this most of the time.
It's really nice to finally connect, and I really appreciate being seen and heard more than you could possibly know.
The fact you're still here despite how bleak and uncertain things have become goes to show you haven't given up and I think the universe has a way eventually rewarding that kind of optimism. Even if it feels like it takes forever to get it, haha. Now the overall crypto market is in a negative space, we are about to see who was really here for the money and who was here because they believed in the tech, community and potential of Hive (same for a lot of other projects, but especially Hive).
Thanks for making me feel better. Its hard to imagine a life without Hive.